Sunday, June 11, 2017

Bail Agents, This Should Worry You

Bail agents, if the insurance companies were making any progress, you'd see independent opinion pieces popping up all over America with varying views about bail reform. You wouldn't be able to even keep track of them, and they'd be coming from a variety of big, important groups or people who have legitimate opinions about bail. That's what I see every day -- and I can honestly say that I can't keep track of any of it.

But what do you get? Opinion pieces written and likely paid for by ABC and the insurance-infested PBUS.

The latest example is, "Bail Keeps Criminals Away from the Rest of Us," an opinion piece posted by ABC and PBUS the other day. How do I know this piece is just a shill piece for the insurance companies? Because the dude who wrote it doesn't know anything about bail and keeps talking about all the stuff the insurance companies are peddling.

Let's start with the title. You do know that when bail keeps criminals away from the rest of us, that's actually "no bail," right? Bail that is designed to keep criminals from the rest of us is unconstitutional. This legal lesson is lost on the insurance companies, though, and they keep trying to force people to think that somehow they have something to do with public safety. But the author doesn't know that -- he writes what they tell him.

Next the author tries a history lesson, saying that "prior to the advent of bail, suspects were held until their trial date." Wrong. With a capital W. Bail has always been release. Even the predecessors to bail -- before the Normans, before jails even, were based on release. I honestly don't know what this guy is talking about, but you should know that the insurance companies' attempt to write a competing history of bail has failed already. Really, man, I'd like to see a cite for this one.

Then there's the language. Only bail insurance companies say "get out of jail free," "social justice warriors," and "algorithm regime."

Then there's what the author cites to. Jefferson County Colorado is a favorite of bail insurance companies because that's where I came from. You only have to know two things about Jeffco. They got rid of money bail for 14 weeks, and everything went well. After that pilot, they went back to using money bail and everything sucked. By the way, it was the insurance companies coming out to Jeffco and attacking me personally that ultimately led me to do what I do now full time. Do you think that coming after me back then was a good strategy? Think about that every time they make personal attacks, and be sure to give a big thanks to ABC for getting me started and to PBUS for keeping me going.

He also cites to a study by Helland and Tabarrok, which has been discredited by the very agency that provided the data for that study to begin with. But the point is, nobody cites to those guys on their own -- they do it only when it's part of the insurance company script.

Then there's New Jersey.

And finally, there's the fact that the entire piece does exactly what ABC and PBUS do best -- fight and argue for the status quo without any ideas to help jurisdictions that are actually trying to change. "It isn't perfect," the author says, "but it beats the alternative." That argument is worthless and failing as we speak.

All of this should worry you, bail agents, because ABC and PBUS have to provide all of the crap for people to say. It may look like someone has put a bit of independent thought into this opinion piece, but that's just not true. ABC and PBUS don't have any people talking about keeping the money bail system in place on their own, and so ABC and PBUS have to actually manufacture people's opinions.

Like I said, I can't even keep track of all the people across America writing about changing "bail" and "no bail." I don't have to tell anyone what to say. They just say it. What do the bail insurance companies do? They use shills.

About Me

Hello everyone! I'm a criminal justice system analyst with 25 years of legal experience. I was editor-in-chief of the law journal in law school, and I worked as a law clerk to a federal appellate judge right after graduation. I then worked in private practice for several years in Washington DC before I came back to Colorado, where I became interested in criminal justice. I worked for both the state and federal courts of appeals as a staff attorney doing criminal appeals, and I also taught at Washburn Law School for a year before I got involved in the local criminal justice system issues in Jefferson County, Colorado. In that job I quickly realized that there was a lot of room for criminal justice reform, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

For the past several years I've been working on reforming America's traditional system of administering bail. Believe me, it really needs it. I started this blog because I was getting somewhat fed up with all of the slanted misinformation and self-serving research and analyses circulated in the field. This is my little way of chiming in.

I think I've had plenty of formal education, and I hope I'm not forced to get any more (although I'm taking two classes on Coursera!). I have a law degree, a masters of law degree, and a masters of criminal justice degree in addition to the two degrees that I got in college.

I am currently the Executive Director of a Colorado nonprofit called the Center for Legal and Evidence-Based Practices. It serves as my platform for performing neutral and objective research and analysis of topics relating to bail and pretrial justice. I hope that you'll get something out of this blog, which will undoubtedly contain a few things you aren't likely to find anywhere else.